Abstract

The metabolic disposition of simultaneously delivered [14C]salicylamide (SAM) (100 microM) and a tracer concentration of its hydroxylated metabolite [3H]gentisamide (GAM) was studied with single-pass followed by recirculating rat liver perfusion (10 ml/min). The use of dual radiolabeling of precursor-product pairs in single-pass and recirculating perfusions allowed for characterization of the differential metabolism of preformed [3H]GAM and formed [14C]GAM, which arose in situ in the liver with [14C]SAM single-pass perfusion, and the behavior of circulating [14C]GAM, which behaved as a preformed species in recirculation. In both modes of perfusion, [14C]SAM was mainly sequentially metabolized to [14C]GAM-5-glucuronide, whereas [3H]GAM predominantly formed [3H]GAM-5-sulfate. The steady-state and time-averaged clearances of SAM were identical and approached the value of flow, yielding a high hepatic extraction ratio (E = 0.98). The apparent extraction ratio of formed GAM [E(mi) = 0.96] was greater than that of the preformed species [E(pmi) approximately 0.7]. Because the coupling of (SAM) oxidation and (GAM) glucuronidation was a plausible explanation for the observation, a novel physiological pharmacokinetic model was developed to interpret the data. In this model, the liver was divided into three zonal units, within which acinar distribution of enzymatic activities was considered, namely periportal sulfation, evenly distributed glucuronidation, and perivenous hydroxylation. Each zonal region was subdivided into extracellular, cytosolic, and endoplasmic reticulum compartments, with cytosolic (sulfotransferases) and microsomal (cytochromes P-450 and UDP-glucuronosyltransferase) enzymes being segregated intracellularly into the cytosolic compartment and endoplasmic reticulum compartment, respectively. The simulations provided a good prediction of the present experimental data as well as previously obtained data with increasing SAM concentration and retrograde flow and supported the contention that SAM oxidation and GAM glucuronidation are coupled.